GM. We have one administrative announcement before we get into the news. Homescreen will be taking a quick break next week due to some OOO plans on our writing team.

Don't miss us too much—we'll see you bright and early next Monday. Now let's get into it. 

CYBERWARFARE

Ukraine and Russia take things online

As everyone knows, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine earlier this week kicked off a war unlike any that Europe has seen in decades. Most reporting has focused on the missile strikes and artillery fire targeted at major Ukrainian cities, but the conflict is also playing out in a different arena: online. 

The digital front

We’re still witnessing the early stages of Russia’s invasion, so information about cyberattacks is somewhat limited. But a few key themes are beginning to emerge:

• DDoS attacks: As the siege of Ukraine began on Wednesday, Ukrainian government websites were disrupted by DDoS attacks. Likely in retaliation, Russian websites—including the site of the Kremlin itself—also suffered similar outages. RT, a state-owned outlet for Russian propaganda, tweeted that it had managed to fend off a DDoS attack.

• Data-wipers: Various Ukrainian organizations have also been hit by malware attacks designed to corrupt data. Cybersecurity firm Symantec reported that ransomware attacks were used as a decoy for a data-wiping program. These weren't out of the blue either—ESET, another cybersecurity company, speculated that the attack had been planned for months.

• Internet outages: Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, has experienced major internet outages, possibly due to damaged infrastructure from Russian strikes. There hasn’t been any word of Russia focusing its attacks on ISPs, but Kharkiv’s blackouts underscore concerns that Russia will attack telecom networks to stifle the flow of information.

Zoom out: Though it’s still too early to gauge how cyberattacks will affect the outcome of this war, it’s already become clear that they’re going to play a major role. This conflict could be the world’s first bonafide cyberwar playing out in tandem with a land-invasion, offering a disturbing glimpse into how our unprecedented connectedness will shape conflicts.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Ukraine keeps the memes comin

Amid the large-scale military invasion of their country, the team behind the official Ukraine Twitter account has doubled down on a unique form of geopolitical communication: memes.

Late on Wednesday, the account posted a cartoon depicting a caricature of Adolf Hitler tending to a small Putin. The post was in reference to Putin citing “de-Nazification” as a reason for its invasion, a false narrative according to experts. As the likes poured in—over 1.2 million at the time of writing—plenty of Twitter users took to the comments to express their disbelief at what they were seeing. 

• One person responded “do you think history books are going to have to include sections about shitposting.” It racked up 84k likes.

• The Ukraine account followed up its post saying “This is not a ‘meme’, but our and your reality right now.”

This isn’t the first time Ukraine has memed

Back in December, as Russian troops first began to amass along its border, Ukraine posted a meme saying that living next to Russia is the worst type of headache. Most recently it used a Lisa Simpson meme to call out its “bad neighbor.”  

Bottom line: Memeing a war is still a shocking juxtaposition no matter how adept the Ukraine comms team is. But Ukraine’s willingness to utilize the language of the internet to rally people to its cause may very well be a highly valuable asset in its fight against its more powerful aggressor.

QUICK HITS

Seed Round

Stat: People have been eyeing bitcoin price charts in recent weeks to see how it would perform amidst rising global tensions. The answer? Kinda like a tech stock. As of late January, the 100-day correlation between bitcoin and the tech-heavy Nasdaq was 0.4 (1 means they performed identically). Correlation between bitcoin and gold on the other hand? Nearly zero. 

Startup: HUBUC calls itself the “AWS for financial services.” Looking past the stereotypical "X for Y" framing, it seems like Spain-based team are definitely onto something. Its platform does the heavy lifting of embedding financial services like bank accounts, payments, virtual and physical cards, and digital wallets via one easy API. It just raised $10 million from WndrCo and Runa Capital. More from TechCrunch here. 

Rabbit hole: Here comes the world's first TikTok war. (Substack)

WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON

• The SEC is probing Elon and Kimball Musk over potential insider trading of Tesla stock.

• Elon Musk's day got worse when a judge turned down his request to bring the SEC back to court over his securities fraud case.

• The Justice Department moved to halt UnitedHealth’s $13 billion acquisition of health technology company Change Healthcare.

• Siri received a gender-neutral voice option in an iOS update.

• Clubhouse is adding a text chat feature into its voice rooms similar to YouTube or Twitch chat.

• Sotheby's was set to to host the largest NFT auction ever, then got rugged.

TRIVIA

Complaining about gas prices is everyone’s favorite pastime right now, but the rising price of something else is even more painful. What does the blue line represent?

FRIDAY FUNDRAISING 

How to craft your startup story

TID BITS

More Ukraine x Russia coverage

• Twitter list of reputable journalists providing ongoing coverage of the situation

• What is SWIFT?

• A truly horribly timed and dystopian Applebee’s commercial 

• Sometimes air traffic tells the whole story 

• Pod Save America episode breaks down why this war is happening

TRIVIA ANSWER

College tuition. And that’s not including the $200 textbooks.

Source Reddit, u/chartr